Our trip to Marceline, MO, home of Walt-and my 100th post

[ransam]

About once a year my sister, friend Brian, and I go to Marceline, MO for the day. If you don’t know, Marceline is a very small town in Missouri. Walt Disney lived there as a kid and often said it was one of the biggest influences on his life. From the moment you get there, you can see why. Walt patterned Main Street from the Disney parks after Kansas Avenue in Marceline. Kansas Avenue is Marceline’s main street, and from the feel, architecture, you can definitely tell. What’s interesting is that Kansas avenue stops as soon as the buildings start and then it’s called Main Street, once the buildings stop it goes back to being Kansas Avenue.
Before you get to Main Street there is a Disney Museum. This is a must see if you’re a Disney fan. It’s ran by volunteers, and one of the ladies that works there actually knew Walt. She was a young woman when Walt made his last visit to Marceline right before we lost him. Walt stayed w/ her and her husband. She has some cool stories and is very willing to share them.
Outside the Museum there is a beautiful garden, and a brick wall where you can buy a brick to help sustain the museum and share your name and a quick message about Disney.
Inside the museum it’s filled with Disney memorabilia. Much of what they have were donated by Diane Disney, his daughter, and Ruth, his sister. There’s an old desk that Walt sat in when he was in school…they have a room dedicated to his parents and his siblings, and then many rooms for him and his brother and Disneyland. They have a display case with tons of letters Walt and Roy wrote to Ruth. Reading those is almost unreal. These are letters actually written by them…it’s funny to hear them talk about they have this new idea to make a movie about this book called Mary Poppins, or they talk about some new problem w/ the construction of Disneyland….and in almost every letter there is mention of money or stock they have given to Ruth.
The second floor of the museum is new this year…and all it is a small model of Disneyland that a 12 year old boy started working on and worked on until he was well into adult hood. The details are incredible…I have no idea how he did it. I have a few pictures, let me know and I’ll be glad to email them to you…but that in itself is worth the price of admission ($5 for the museum).

The Main Street is kind of cool too..there are a couple antique stores, and they have some really old Disney items that are for collectors…the people are very friendly. Many of them recognized us from our previous trips. There’s a theatre that shows Disney movies, as well as a current movie. Upstairs from the Theatre are a few hotel rooms w/ Disney themes. We didn’t look at them…but I have seen pictures.

Past Main Street there is a Disney Memorial Park. They have a pool and baseball diamond. They also have the original autopia from Disneyland that Walt donated to the city. It’s not working and very worn down, but you can still see the streets, the tunnel, and where ticket booth for it was. there are some other decorations on the track as well…

You can see Walt’s house, but you can’t go in, someone is living there now. but about 100 yards behind the house is a trail that is open to the public. It leads to the Wishing Tree. Walt visited that in his last visit and said he spent many hours climbing the tree and day dreaming.. There s a famous picture of Walt and Roy standing by the tree reminiscing about old times….further down the trail is a replica of the barn that Walt use to put on shows at when he was a kid. Inside the barn they invite you to write on the walls your memories of Walt, Disneyland, Disneyworld, etc…there are hundreds of signatures, memories on the wall.

All in all, if you’re a Disney fanatic like I am, this is an awesome trip. It’s filled w/ memories and special moments in Walt Disney’s life. I don’t’ know about anyone else, but I am just as fascinated w/ the history of Walt as I am w/ the parks… it’s easy by visiting this town to see how much it influenced his life.
I have 208 days until my next trip to Disneyworld, so this was a nice Disney fix!

If you guys want to see pics, let me know and I will email them to you, or if you want you can sign up for my facebook. I plan on having them up tonight….just message me and I’ll be glad to send them out, give you any other information on our trip, or give you my facebook….

Thanks for reading my story!

[tinkgirl07]

WOW! Thanks for sharing that great story. It sounds like a wonderful place to visit. I can only imagine how magical it would be to see the original "main street" and all of the influences that grew into what all of us love so much! I would love to see pictures can you post the facebook public album address here or maybe message it? And big thanks again for sharing, what a great story and memories to have!

[the other micki]

Wow! The museum sounds so neat! I'm going to try to make it there one day! Thanks!

[faline]

Very cool! Thanks for the report!

[thejens]

Thanks for the report. I'd really love to visit sometime! I love reading about Walt's history too.

[Kathy Jetson]

thanks for the story sounds like a great place!

[Magic Smiles]

Thank you for a great trip report. I would love to see photos.

[wishiniwasthere]

I live in St. Louis, so I'm thinking this is a very do-able trip for me. I never realized all this was there! I think I'm going to look into that for a weekend trip. Thanks for the scoop! I would love to see some of your pictures.

[BluewaterBrad]

What a cool trip!! I would love to do that one day.

[DizNee143]

sounds like an awesome place to go visit!! thank you for sharing this with us!